There is a growing demand for a digital still camera, digital video camera (movie) or cellular phone with a built-in camera meeting not only high-pixel, high image quality but also downsizing requirements, and a solid image pickup device mounted on such an apparatus is becoming more compact in recent years.
FIG. 10 shows a conventional solid image pickup device. A solid image pickup element 51 is fixed to a base 11 of a concave package 100 using an adhesive 52, terminals of the solid image pickup element 51 are electrically connected to internal terminals 31 arranged on a step 13 of a side wall 12 of the package 100 using bonding wires 53, and a transparent member such as cover glass 54 to keep the interior of the package 100 airtight is adhered to the top face of the package 100.
Downsizing this solid image pickup device requires reduction to a minimum of a clearance between an inner surface 12a of the side wall 12 of the package 100 and the side of the solid image pickup element 51. However, with such setting, the distance between the solid image pickup element 51 and internal terminals 31 is shortened and if the adhesive 52 is extruded around when the solid image pickup element 51 is die-bonded to the base 11, the adhesive 52 would creep up over the internal terminals 31 and the terminals of the solid image pickup element 51, causing problems of short-circuit or the like.
As a measure for this problem, there has been proposed a method of optimizing a nozzle layout for applying the adhesive 52 and the amount of the adhesive applied, thereby minimizing the amount of the adhesive 52 extruded. However, though this method has an effect on suppressing the extrusion of the adhesive 52, bleeding of a solvent component generated from the adhesive 52 spreads faster than the adhesive 52, resulting in a situation that can hardly be handled.
As shown in FIG. 11, there is another proposal for a package 101 having a layered structure comprising ceramic boards 200A to 200D with the ceramic board 200C interposed between the ceramic board 200B which supports internal terminals 31 on the top face thereof and the ceramic board 200D which serves as a base 11, the ceramic board 200C having a smaller width than that of the ceramic board 200B such that a gap 201 is formed to collect therein an adhesive 52 extruded (see Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 6-53459). However, this method has a possibility of resulting in insufficient strengths of the protruding part of the ceramic board 200B and the internal terminals 31 thereon, threatening to cause deformation or damage due to load at the time of wire bonding, which may lead to defective wire bonding.